2024/11/07 by Devoney Looser · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy #Critical Theory and Political Philosophy #Artistic and Creative Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/pub.2024.9
Abstract Researchers need to reach a new academic normal in which virtually every piece of scholar-facing humanities work generates a public-facing writing component. This essay recounts interactions with a colleague who, in a curriculum meeting, described public humanities as “a hobby.” I suggest arguments and strategies to lead skeptical colleagues to re-envision the value and possibilities – and occasional dangers and pitfalls – of the public humanities. Public writing is a practice that academic humanists should regularly engage in and a mode we must be willing to teach in order to win back public trust in higher education and to reinvigorate humanities research at a time of precarity.